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babylonsister

(170,960 posts)
Sun Feb 12, 2012, 11:01 PM Feb 2012

Rick Santorum and Opus Dei

http://secularhumanist.blogspot.com/2012/01/rick-santorum-and-opus-dei.html

Rick Santorum and Opus Dei
by Edd Doerr


Is Rick Santorum a member of Opus Dei, the secretive, ultraconservative outfit founded by a Spanish priest in 1928 that came to practically run Spain during the last years of the Franco dictatorship? The outfit exposed, sort of, in Dan Brown's popular novel and film The Da Vinci Code? We may never know. Opus Dei, a "Personal Prelature of the Catholic Church", discourages its members from revealing their connection with the outfit that is so bizarre that most Catholics would have nothing to do with it.

What we do know is this. In early 2002 then-senator Santorum led a delegation from the US to Rome for a week long celebration of the Spanish founder of Opus Dei. Santorum sent two of his sons to The Heights, a males-only private prep school in Potomac, Maryland, connected to Opus Dei. The school's web site says that "The spiritual direction of The Heights School is entrusted to Opus Dei." Other bigshots who have sent their sons to The Heights include former GOP senators Chuck Hagel and Mel Martinez and former FBI director Louis Freeh.

Santorum's extremist views on contraception are essentially those of Opus Dei.


On January 14 the 150 or so evangelical leaders meeting in Texas to find an alternative to Willard Romney agreed to coalesce around Santorum.

(Lest there be some misunderstanding, let me make clear that all of the GOP presidential aspirants strike me as less suitable for high office than the Three Stooges.)
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Rick Santorum and Opus Dei (Original Post) babylonsister Feb 2012 OP
I've been wondering about that. The Velveteen Ocelot Feb 2012 #1
I've been wondering that, too. Suich Feb 2012 #2
FYI The Court Is Stacked With Catholics The Bishops And Cardinals Are Being False Witnesses TheMastersNemesis Feb 2012 #7
I was a Catholic until I was 23...quit over birth control. Suich Feb 2012 #9
I Know TheMastersNemesis Feb 2012 #11
my favorite sin to confess was iemitsu Feb 2012 #15
Ah, my suspicions were true. ChairmanAgnostic Feb 2012 #3
our "wonderful" Governor Sam #heblowsalot Brownback demtenjeep Feb 2012 #4
na the scope be that almanstores Feb 2012 #5
That's what crossed my mind. nt gateley Feb 2012 #6
I think Santorum Redstate Bluegirl Feb 2012 #8
Oh, shoot. I shoulda tumbled to that Remember Me Feb 2012 #10
Newt Is Best Bet For Republican Nominee FounderChurch Feb 2012 #12
Uhhhh, never mind.... jdadd Feb 2012 #13
lordy, lordy...... n/t la la Feb 2012 #14
Are you talking about some other Newt Gingrich? The Velveteen Ocelot Feb 2012 #20
lolz JNelson6563 Feb 2012 #21
First post defending Newt? Prophet 451 Feb 2012 #22
Isn't Opus Dei the Catholic S&M Club? LetTimmySmoke Feb 2012 #16
No, no, nothing kinky about it. If they have impure thoughts they dimbear Feb 2012 #17
Beating yourself when you get impure thoughts is quite common among men. LetTimmySmoke Feb 2012 #18
I think we understand perfectly. You can't have a club with just one member. dimbear Feb 2012 #19

Suich

(10,642 posts)
2. I've been wondering that, too.
Sun Feb 12, 2012, 11:10 PM
Feb 2012

On the SCOTUS, isn't Roberts? A couple of others, too, if I remember right.

 

TheMastersNemesis

(10,602 posts)
7. FYI The Court Is Stacked With Catholics The Bishops And Cardinals Are Being False Witnesses
Mon Feb 13, 2012, 12:24 AM
Feb 2012

Six of the nine Justices are Catholic. Roberts, Alito and Scalia are reported Opus Dei members. So one could say the court is stacked theologically. Opus Dei in Latin means "work of God". Having been raised Catholic my understanding of Opus Dei is that members are where they are to do the "work of God". As a Catholic you must follow Catholic dogma and pronouncements of the Pope that are "ex cathedra". That means his words are directly from God himself as the Pope is the ordained representative of Christ.

I am not sure how many Americans understand the GOP deliberately stacked the court. And one wonders if this fact has anything to do with Roe V Wade? At this point there is no obvious decision that one could say came from Opus Dei or Catholic leanings. Having said that it seems more than coincidental that all of these men are cut out of the same cloth so to speak.

As a former or recovering Catholic I know them very well. What surprises me is that the bishop have come out and so radically have inserted their faith into the political arena in an effort to tell the country that we must follow Catholic doctrine. What is next that we have to arrest people for having impure thoughts?

Their argument about keeping them from practicing their faith is a false one. The bishops and cardinals are a bunch of bold faced liars and break the commandment about lying. They know it and the do it anyway. They are every bit as determined to run the country the way they want it run.

They are also guilty of the sin of calumny in that they are lying and attempting to destroy the reputation of the president.

These men are not men of faith and not men of God. They are rather more like the disciples of Satan the way they are acting.

Suich

(10,642 posts)
9. I was a Catholic until I was 23...quit over birth control.
Mon Feb 13, 2012, 12:43 AM
Feb 2012

I'd never even heard of Opus Dei until The Da Vinci Code came out. I started reading articles about them and the more I read, the scarier it got.

Thanks for the informative post.

btw, all through grade school we had to go to confession each week and I confessed to "impure thoughts" the most! I didn't even know what it meant but it sounded kinda bad.

 

TheMastersNemesis

(10,602 posts)
11. I Know
Mon Feb 13, 2012, 12:52 AM
Feb 2012

I went to St. Aloysious and St. Cabrini grade schools. The impure thoughts thing in grade school was just so absurd. You couldn't have one at those early ages if you tried. It was all so much bull. And I quit at 23 when I finished Catholic college. And I ended up marrying a Baptist who left their church because they were electioneering from the pulpit. They even had pic of G. Bush in the Rec area.

iemitsu

(3,888 posts)
15. my favorite sin to confess was
Mon Feb 13, 2012, 01:50 AM
Feb 2012

touching myself. if i had known what kind of "fire" i was playing with i would have stopped.

 

demtenjeep

(31,997 posts)
4. our "wonderful" Governor Sam #heblowsalot Brownback
Sun Feb 12, 2012, 11:38 PM
Feb 2012

is a proud member Maybe Frothy will get the nomination and take Sammy #heblowsalot with him

FounderChurch

(1 post)
12. Newt Is Best Bet For Republican Nominee
Mon Feb 13, 2012, 01:10 AM
Feb 2012

Both Santorum and Romney are religious fanatics. This makes them nervous and up tight in the way they talk, move and carry themselves. It also makes them dumb, AND dangerous.

Either of them would be bad as president. As to who would be weakest or strongest against Obama, no one really knows. But should a Republican get in, and no one knows whether that might happen, the best one for the good of the nation to have in the White House would be Newt Gingrich.

For one he is actually intelligent, and does anyone really want an unintelligent president, of either party? For another, he is a pretty tolerant person who worked well across the aisle with Bill Clinton and basically saved Bill's butt by helping him create a roaring economy and balance 4 budgets in a row insuring he beat the impeachment rap, and gained re-election. Also he is NOT a religious nut.

On some level we are all Americans, regardless of our views, and want, or should want, the nation to succeed not fail. But, what say ye?

The Velveteen Ocelot

(115,267 posts)
20. Are you talking about some other Newt Gingrich?
Mon Feb 13, 2012, 08:08 AM
Feb 2012

Because the Newt Gingrich who's running for the GOP nomination right now is a nasty, intolerant serial adulterer turned religious nut who wants poor kids to work as school janitors. And I don't recall that he did Bill Clinton any favors - to the contrary, he was calling for his impeachment while shtupping his own mistress. And isn't he the guy who shut down the whole government because he thought Clinton had dissed him be making him ride in the back of AF1?

If you are talking about the same Newt Gingrich, I think you'd better seek help immediately.

Prophet 451

(9,796 posts)
22. First post defending Newt?
Mon Feb 13, 2012, 08:40 AM
Feb 2012

Did you somehow forget when he shut the government down twice over petty personal issues? Or that he's an intolerant sanctimonious hypocrite? Or that he's essentially a psychopath (and I use that word in it's technical sense)?

dimbear

(6,271 posts)
17. No, no, nothing kinky about it. If they have impure thoughts they
Mon Feb 13, 2012, 02:51 AM
Feb 2012

beat themselves, or strap on an interesting medieval appliance called a cilice, a belt of barbed wire.

Perfectly normal healthy stuff.

dimbear

(6,271 posts)
19. I think we understand perfectly. You can't have a club with just one member.
Mon Feb 13, 2012, 06:55 AM
Feb 2012

If I were to pick out a Catholic society which was definitely S/M, it would be the curious groups called the flagelantes.

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